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		<title>Laundry day encore &lt;https://y.st./en/weblog/2017/02-February/08.xhtml&gt;</title>
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			<h1>Laundry day encore</h1>
			<p>Day 00704: Wednesday, 2017 February 08</p>
		</header>
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2017/02/08.jpg" alt="A view of the complex at night" class="weblog-header-image" width="800" height="480" />
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		After getting the last of my coursework done that was due today, I headed home to wash laundry.
		I carried with me a large bin of clean laundry to expedite my move.
		I also brought over a bag of random stuff that I plan to empty and use as a sort of overnight bag when away from home.
		Once I got my mother&apos;s laundry started in the washing machine though, I found that I&apos;d forgotten my laptop&apos;s power cord.
		Scrap.
		I was planning to finish up the coursework that&apos;s due tomorrow while the laundry was going.
		Instead, I ended up sort of half relaxing and listening to albums that I still need to leave a review for.
	</p>
	<p>
		Soon though, my mother showed up.
		I should have done the laundry in the morning, but I needed to complete my coursework.
		I should have completed my coursework yesterday, but I was too tired.
		I should have done it anyway, to prevent my mother from wasting both their time (as they didn&apos;t need to be there) and my time (as I couldn&apos;t even continue using my time in the minimally-productive capacity that I&apos;d been able to by hearing out the albums).
	</p>
	<p>
		I tried to check the time while doing laundry, and found that my mobile had glitched up again.
		The time was incorrect.
		That meant that the photograph that I&apos;d been planning on using for this weblog entry had the wrong timestamp.
		There wasn&apos;t any daylight left though, so to replace it, all that I was able to get was a snapshot of the apartment complex at night.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="university">
	<h2>University life</h2>
	<p>
		I finished up my discussion assignment for the week:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Part of the discussion assignment this week was to argue both sides.
			That means that I can&apos;t possibly agree with everything that I said, as I have to argue both for my side and against my side!
			In reality, I&apos;m against gambling in all high-stakes forms.
			I suppose that sitting around and playing poker with your friends and putting a few dollars on the table doesn&apos;t do a whole lot of harm.
			However, casinos and the lottery pray on the weak-minded and I think that society would be better off without them.
			In both casinos and the lottery, wealth is redistributed from the poor to the wealthy, though in the case of casinos, wealthy people are known to gamble there as well.
			The lottery is more targeted towards poor people.
			I&apos;m not at all in favor of this redistribution of wealth from the poor towards the already-rich.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>This is what <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org./wiki/gamble">Wiktionary</a> has to say on the matter:</p>
		<blockquote cite="https://en.wiktionary.org./wiki/gamble">
			<h3>Verb[<a href="https://en.wiktionary.org./w/index.php?title=gamble&amp;action=edit&amp;section=6" title="Edit section: Verb">edit</a>]</h3>
			<p>
				<strong>gamble</strong> (<i>third-person singular simple present</i> <b><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org./wiki/gambles#English" title="gambles">gambles</a></b>, <i>present participle</i> <b><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org./wiki/gambling#English" title="gambling">gambling</a></b>, <i>simple past and past participle</i> <b><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org./wiki/gambled#English" title="gambled">gambled</a></b>)
			</p>
			<ol>
				<li>
					To take a risk, with the potential of a positive outcome.
				</li>
				<li>
					To play risky <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org./wiki/game" title="game">games</a>, especially <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org./wiki/casino" title="casino">casino</a> games, for monetary gain.
				</li>
				<li>
					(<a href="https://en.wiktionary.org./wiki/Appendix:Glossary#transitive" title="Appendix:Glossary">transitive</a>) To <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org./wiki/risk" title="risk">risk</a> (something) for potential gain.
					<p>
						<i>He <b>gambled</b> his reputation on the outcome.</i>
					</p>
				</li>
				<li>To interact with equipment at a <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org./wiki/casino" title="casino">casino</a></li>
			</ol>
		</blockquote>
		<p>
			Playing the lottery is a risk with a potentially-positive outcome.
			That makes it gambling.
			It&apos;s also a type of risky game, which ties back to gambling as well.
			It&apos;s additionally worth noting that the lottery fund maintainers act as the sort of business that you describe.
			You can lose to that business, though some people will win from the business too.
			Like at a casino, there&apos;s not even always a winner.
			Most of the time, <strong>*all*</strong> of the lottery players lose.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			I&apos;m not talking about specifically taxing the lottery winners, I&apos;m talking about taxing the wealthy in general.
			Countries with smaller wealth gaps have been proven to be happier places.
			Strangely, this applies even to the wealthy.
			By shrinking the wealth gap, for example with higher taxes for the wealthy, even the wealthy do better.
		</p>
		<p>
			You present a good point about this being a legalized form of gambling.
			In many jurisdictions, other types of gambling aren&apos;t legal.
			While I&apos;m by no means in favor of gambling, I&apos;m even less in favor of monopolies.
			In many places, the lottery has a monopoly on the gambling market, so they set all the rules, and no safer gambling alternative is available.
		</p>
		<p>
			Stupidity and ignorance aren&apos;t the same thing.
			I can easily see why those suffering from lack of education (ignorance) would be prone to gambling with the lottery.
			However, the stupid are also likely to become victims of the lottery.
			One of my parents is a highly-educated schoolteacher.
			They&apos;re also so poor that they can barely make ends meet.
			However, they waste their money on the lottery on a fairly-regular basis.
			The problem in my parent&apos;s case isn&apos;t lack of education, but sheer idiocy.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Huh.
			So what you&apos;re saying is that psychological addictions (as opposed to chemical addictions) are a good thing according to hedonists?
			What a strange thought.
			I guess that I could never be a hedonist then, as addictions seem like such a negative thing to me.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			You say that a utilitarian monster is highly efficient, but that the lottery is in fact a good example of a utilitarian monster.
			Does that mean that you think that the lottery is highly efficient?
		</p>
		<p>
			In what way do you mean that the decisions about the greater good are made clear by the lottery?
		</p>
		<p>
			Is imaginary satisfaction worth real satisfaction?
			Is imaginary satisfaction worth anything at all?
		</p>
		<p>
			The hypothetical poor person with a project that they want to engage in would most likely be better off investing that money to try to grow it instead of handing the money over as an almost assured loss to the lottery.
			Even simply saving the money and not using it for anything would put them in a better place than the lottery in all likelihood would.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Saying that the lottery is an easy way to make money if you win is like saying that hockey is an easy sport to succeed at if you win.
			Winning is the hard part, so the lottery is an incredibly difficult way to make money.
			Nothing that you can do can influence how the numbers turn up.
			Try as you might, no effort brings you closer to victory in the lottery.
			Instead, you have to blindly depend on luck.
			I understand that you&apos;re saying that the masses think that the lottery is an easy way to make money, but it&apos;s incredibly sad that the masses are suffering from that delusion.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Like you said, lottery funds often go to projects that help everyone.
			However, a utilitarian monsters are individuals or small groups that benefit.
			How is the lottery a utilitarian monster?
		</p>
		<p>
			The problem with using monetized utilitarianism to argue in favor of the lottery is that the lottery takes more money from the poor than it gives back to them.
			The amount of money taken from individual poor people added together is greater than the amount of money that the lottery contributes to social projects.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		I also graded the three essays assigned to me for grading this week.
	</p>
</section>
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